BARCELONA — No, Michael Phelps did not swim even one stroke at the 2013 world championships. Yes, his presence hung over the meet — it being a year to the day that he touched the wall for the last time in the winning medley relay in London, as was helpfully noted in a Facebook post by the U.S. Olympic Team. Is he coming back? Who knows?

Whatever Phelps ultimately opts to do, keep at his golf game or again take the plunge, these championships, which wrapped up Sunday in memorable fashion, with the bang of the medley relays, will be long remembered because — if this is indeed the post-Phelps era — swimming now boasts not just one super-amazing swimmer.

BARCELONA — The world after Michael Phelps gets underway here shortly in sun-splashed Spain, or at least that part that everyone outside serious swim geeks would be inclined to pay attention to, the 2013 swimming world championships, and from all over the globe they sought Friday both to downplay expectations while asserting that quite naturally the point in racing is to win.

“It’s kind of a down year but everyone is getting ready to race,” American Matt Grevers, the London Games 100 meters backstroke gold medalist, said, summing it up perfectly in just one short sentence.

The agenda is patently obvious Wednesday, when the International Olympic Committee’s policy-making executive board meets in St. Petersburg, Russia, to determine the next steps for the sports program at the 2020 Summer Games.

Does wrestling stand a chance to get back in? Or will it be irretrievably out for at least for four years? What about baseball and softball’s combined bid — does it deserve the one spot now open for 2020? Or will the other sports, such as squash, karate or climbing, be given an opportunity to make their case?

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Alan Abrahamson is an award-winning sportswriter, best-selling author and in-demand television analyst. In 2010, he launched his own website, 3 Wire Sports, described in James Patterson and Mark Sullivan's 2012 best-selling novel Private Games as "the world's best source of information about the [Olympic] Games and the culture that surrounds them."